Layout, widgets not inside ???

SPlatten

@JoeCFD , thank you appreciated, why isn't this kind of thing required when positioning and using Qt Creator? This is the XML copied from the UI file which works perfectly.

   <widget class="QGroupBox" name="groupBox">
    <property name="geometry">
     <rect>
      <x>120</x>
      <y>170</y>
      <width>301</width>
      <height>201</height>
     </rect>
    </property>
    <property name="title">
     <string>GroupBox</string>
    </property>
    <widget class="QWidget" name="verticalLayoutWidget">
     <property name="geometry">
      <rect>
       <x>9</x>
       <y>29</y>
       <width>291</width>
       <height>161</height>
      </rect>
     </property>
     <layout class="QVBoxLayout" name="verticalLayout">
      <item>
       <widget class="QRadioButton" name="Radio1">
        <property name="text">
         <string>Radio1</string>
        </property>
       </widget>
      </item>
      <item>
       <widget class="QRadioButton" name="Radio2">
        <property name="text">
         <string>Radio2</string>
        </property>
       </widget>
      </item>
      <item>
       <widget class="QRadioButton" name="Radio3">
        <property name="text">
         <string>Radio3</string>
        </property>
       </widget>
      </item>
     </layout>
    </widget>
   </widget>
  </widget>
 </widget>

No sign of any styles or positioning, I'm now trying to reverse the logic to see where the difference is.

This is what I found in the debugger looking at how the above XML appears:
Screenshot 2021-10-20 at 18.06.21.png
What I don't understand is what is **[0] "verticalLayout" as a child ?

Drill down a bit more into this layout:
Screenshot 2021-10-20 at 18.25.22.png
It appears that the groupBox has one child which I agree with and expect verticalLayoutWidget, the layout has 4 children which I didn't expect:

verticalLayout
Radio1
Radio2
Radio3

What is verticalLayout and where did it come from, it has no children, it isn't in the XML layout ?

Just to clarify, just in case the screenshot isn't clear it shows:

groupBox
    verticalLayout
        verticalLayoutWidget
        Radio1
        Radio2
        Radio3

Its verticalLayoutWidget that is the mystery...

Another edit, looked again at the XML and it does match the debugger screenshot. It looks like there is a fiddle in that the first widget is not the QVBoxLayout but a Widget called "verticalLayoutWidget".

JoeCFD

@SPlatten group box has a layout for three radio buttons and is a child as well. In total, it has 4 children.

SPlatten

@JoeCFD, please see edit, bit at the bottom.

JoeCFD

@SPlatten You created a verticalLayoutWidget inside a group box which has 4 children:
verticalLayout
radio1
radio2
radio3

verticalLayoutWidget is not needed. the parent of verticalLayoutWidget is groupBox.

SPlatten

@JoeCFD , to repeat what I did:

Dragged Group Box from Containers palette and dropped onto centralWidget
Dragged Vertical Layout from Layouts palette and dropped onto Group Box
Dragged Radio Button from Buttons palette and dropped onto Vertical Layout
Dragged Radio Button from Buttons palette and dropped onto Vertical Layout
Dragged Radio Button from Buttons palette and dropped onto Vertical Layout
Edited text attribute for each control

Thats it, one layout not two. Take a look at the XML I posted, its pretty clear and its the actual elements that are generated from this XML that I'm questioning.

JoeCFD

@JoeCFD
if there is no title for the group, set top margin to 0
QString group_style_sheet = QString("QGroupBox{border: 2px solid gray;border-radius: 8px;margin-top: 0px;}" );

SPlatten

@JoeCFD , but why? What I'm trying to understand is why if done in Qt Creator WYSIWYG, no fiddles are required and it works, but the code generated from the XML just doesn't add up.

JoeCFD

@SPlatten Could be some global settings in your project which cause this problem. Since all my widgets are customized, I do not complain about this. BTW, border-radius setting is bad sometimes when screen resolution is not high enough. Often, I have to set it to 0.

SPlatten

@JoeCFD , please see latest edit....

JoeCFD

@SPlatten
Dragged Group Box from Containers palette and dropped onto centralWidget
Dragged Radio Button from Buttons palette
Dragged Radio Button from Buttons palette
Dragged Radio Button from Buttons palette
right click inside qgroupbox and select layout->Lay out Vertically ---> size policy is added here automatically.
Edited text attribute for each control

do this for each major layout.

SPlatten

@JoeCFD , This was just an exercise using Qt Creator to see what it does and why the works compared to coding it by hand....

JoeCFD

@SPlatten
group layout

SPlatten

@JoeCFD , can you not paste the source or post what you did?

JoeCFD

link added

SPlatten

@JoeCFD , thank you, I'm still trying to see why I cannot replicate in code what the WYSIWYG editor does.

SPlatten

I thought I'd hit on something, I found another post online and added:

pobjLayout->addItem(new QWidgetItem(pobjWidget));

No joy, still doesn't work! Looking at the layout in the debugger, after executing this line, there are no additions to the children, same with addWidget...so what do I have to do?

SGaist

Provide a minimal compilable example of that specific part of your code so that people can experiment with it.

SPlatten

@SGaist , this is difficult, but I will try:

This is the XML:

	<groupbox id="enSEX" eol="true" align="left" layout="vertical" title="Radios"
			  dbfield="vcSex" properties="QGroupBox { border-radius: 8px; background-color:#ff0000; }">
		<radiobutton id="rdoM" text="Male" default="true" position="0,0"/>
		<radiobutton id="rdoF" text="Female" position="1,0"/>
	</groupbox>

I have quite a lot of code that parses all the various node types, here is the bit for the above:

            if ( pobjParent != nullptr ) {
    //Does the parent have a layout?
                pobjLayout = pobjParent->pobjGetLayout();
                if ( pobjLayout != nullptr ) {
    //Yes, clear the pobjParWidget widget
                    pobjParWidget = nullptr;
                }
            }
            pobjWidget = qobject_cast<QWidget*>(clsCNT::pCreate(this,
                                                                mstrName,
                                                                strCSS,
                                                                slstProperties,
                                                                pobjParWidget));

The above code calls pCreate which based on the content of mstrName creates the widget:

QWidget* clsCNT::pCreate(clsXMLnode* pobjNode, const QString& crstrType
                        ,QString& rstrCSS, QStringList& rslstProperties
                        ,QWidget* pobjParent) {
    if ( clsCNT::blnValidType(crstrType) == true ) {
        if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszButton) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtPushBtn(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszCheckbox) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtCheckBox(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszCombo) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtComboBox(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, &rslstProperties, pobjParent);
        } else if( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszFrame) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtFrame(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszGroupBox) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtGroupBox(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, &rslstProperties, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszLabel) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtLabel(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, &rslstProperties, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszLineEdit) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtLineEdit(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, &rslstProperties, pobjParent);            
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszListWidget) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtListWidget(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, &rslstProperties, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszRadioButton) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtRadioButton(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszSliderVert) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtSlider(Qt::Vertical, pobjNode, &rstrCSS, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszSliderHorz) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtSlider(Qt::Horizontal, pobjNode, &rstrCSS, pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszSpinBox) == 0 ) {
            return new QSpinBox(pobjParent);
        } else if ( crstrType.compare(clsCNT::mscszTextEdit) == 0 ) {
            return new clsQtTextEdit(pobjNode, &rstrCSS, &rslstProperties, pobjParent);
        }
    }
    return nullptr;
}

Give the widget a human readable name and add it to the layout if one exists:

        if ( pobjWidget != nullptr ) {
//Set the object name
            QString strID(strGetAttribute(clsXMLnode::mscszAttrID)),
                    strName(mstrName);
            if ( strID.isEmpty() != true ) {
                strName += ", id: " + strID;
            }
            pobjWidget->setObjectName(strName);
        }
        if ( pobjLayout != nullptr ) {
//Any alignment?
            QString strAlign(pobjParent->strGetAttribute(clsXMLnode::mscszAttrAlignment));
            Qt::Alignment eCellAlign(Qt::AlignVCenter | Qt::AlignHCenter);
            if ( strAlign.compare(clsXMLnode::mscszGeomCenter) == 0 ) {
                eCellAlign |= Qt::AlignHCenter;
            } else if ( strAlign.compare(clsXMLnode::mscszGeomLeft) == 0 ) {
                eCellAlign |= Qt::AlignLeft;
            } else if ( strAlign.compare(clsXMLnode::mscszGeomRight) == 0 ) {
                eCellAlign |= Qt::AlignRight;
            }
//Add the widget to the layout
            QLayoutItem* pobjItem(new QWidgetItem(pobjWidget));
            pobjItem->setAlignment(eCellAlign);
            pobjLayout->addItem(pobjItem);
//            pobjLayout->addWidget(pobjWidget);
        }

Hopefully this is enough, however at this point I really don't think its something I've done wrong but a limitation or restriction in Qt, bearing in mind that my code does this all at run-time where as the UI create in Qt is parsed when the project is compiled.

[Edit], I just decided to debug again and single stepped into addItem, interesting:

void QBoxLayout::addItem(QLayoutItem *item)
{
    Q_D(QBoxLayout);
    QBoxLayoutItem *it = new QBoxLayoutItem(item);
    d->list.append(it);
    invalidate();
}

When I get into addItem, on QBoxLayoutItem *it = new QBoxLayoutItem(item);:
Screenshot 2021-10-20 at 20.25.33.png

If I click on Step Over twice, the cursor is pointing to invalidate();, the watch window has changed to:
Screenshot 2021-10-20 at 20.27.08.png

Looks very wrong and after returning back to where the call took place there is no addition to the layout.

addWidget calls addItem internally, so if its a bug in addItem this explains everything.

[Edit 2] I have file a bug:
https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-97662

JKSH

@SPlatten said in Layout, widgets not inside ???:

my code does this all at run-time where as the UI create in Qt is parsed when the project is compiled.

While Qt Designer's .ui files are parsed at compile time, the parser generates C++ code that runs at runtime.

You said that the WYSIWYG editor works. So, build a working GUI and then inspect the ui_*.h file that is generated in your build folder. Copy the code inside the setupUi() method.

SPlatten

@JKSH , thank you, I will take a look.